The purpose of this report is to assess how much
biomass could technically be available for energy
production without increasing pressures on the
environment. As such, it develops a number of
environmental criteria for bioenergy production,
which are then used as assumptions for modelling
the primary potential. These criteria were developed
on a European scale. Complementary assessments
at more regional and local scale are recommended
as a follow-up of this work.

Issued in 1999, the Landfill Directive marked a decisive shift from landfill towards the EU's new waste hierarchy, which prioritises waste prevention, followed by re-use, recycling and recovery, and seeks to avoid landfilling wherever feasible.
The Landfill Directive set targets for progressively reducing the amount of biodegradable municipal waste landfilled in the period to 2016.
A decade on from the Landfill Directive's enactment seems a fitting time to review progress and extract key lessons for policy-makers in Europe and elsewhere. Through individual and comparative analyses of waste management in five countries and one sub-national region (Estonia, Finland, the Flemish Region of Belgium, Germany, Hungary and Italy), as well as an econometric analysis of the EU–25 Member States, this report seeks to answer a number of important questions, including:
To what extent was waste management practice changed in the last decade?
How much of the change was due to the Landfill Directive (and other EU instruments)?
What measures and institutional arrangements did countries introduce?
Which measures and arrangements proved most effective in different national and regional contexts?

Austria, Germany and Belgium recycled the largest proportion of municipal waste in Europe in 2010. Although some countries have rapidly increased recycling rates, Europe is still wasting vast quantities of valuable resources by sending them to landfill, and many countries risk falling short of legally binding recycling targets.

The number of countries achieving defined levels of MSW management in 2001 and 2010. Countries > 25% recycling, > 25% incineration, > 50% landfilling and >75% landfilling. Each country can be included in several waste management categories. Therefore, the total number of countries is greater than 32.